Han Ji

The rear hall of the Xiangyang Prefectural Governor's Mansion. Night.

Kuai Yue was summoned alone. When he entered the inner hall, Liu Bei was standing in front of a map. The map was a complete map of Jingzhou, from Xiangyang to Jiangling, and from Jiangling to Changsha, depicting all eight commanderies and forty-two counties.

Liu Bei asked Kuai Yue whether the four commanderies of Changsha, Lingling, Guiyang, and Wuling—of which he hadn't led troops—would surrender. Kuai Yue replied that the governors of these four commanderies were all former subordinates of Liu Biao, and now that Liu Cong had surrendered and Xiangyang had returned, they wouldn't resist if a proclamation was sent. However, the governor of Changsha, Zhang Xian, was of a fiery temperament, and it might be necessary to send someone to negotiate in person.

Liu Bei asked who would be suitable to send. Kuai Yue thought for a moment and said Han Song was suitable. Han Song was from Changsha and had a past relationship with Zhang Xian. He suggested sending Han Song with Liu Bei's personal letter to Changsha, which would persuade Zhang Xian to surrender.

The three prefectures of Lingling, Guiyang, and Wuling can be dealt with with a single proclamation. Kuai Yue spoke these words in a calm tone, each judgment supported by evidence, without any unnecessary embellishment.

After thinking for a while, Liu Bei asked Kuai Yue what the gentry of Jingzhou thought. Kuai Yue remained silent for a moment before speaking, saying that what the gentry of Jingzhou feared most was not a change of lord, but the loss of their interests after a change of lord.

If the Prime Minister doesn't touch their land, strip them of their official positions, or dredge up old grievances, they will work peacefully. However, there is one condition: if the Prime Minister wants to march south to Jiangdong, Jingzhou is his rear base.

To ensure stability in the rear, the right people must be employed. If the Prime Minister appoints people from Jingzhou to manage Jingzhou affairs, the gentry will genuinely submit. If only the old guard is employed, the Jingzhou gentry may not say it, but they will harbor resentment.

After listening, Liu Bei nodded and told Kuai Yue that he would consult with him more often on matters concerning Jingzhou in the future.

In the following days, Liu Bei received a series of meetings with the gentry of Jingzhou. Fu Xun was the first to arrive. He was the Prefectural Governor of Jingzhou, in charge of criminal law, and spoke with a Jingzhou accent and at a fast pace.

As soon as he entered, he clasped his hands in greeting and said, "Prime Minister, please feel free to speak your mind." Liu Bei instructed him to continue overseeing the criminal laws of Jingzhou. Fu Xun didn't mince words and immediately offered several suggestions: the punishments in Jingzhou were harsher than those in the Central Plains—for example, stealing an ox meant cutting off a hand—he suggested changing it to flogging combined with forced labor. Liu Bei agreed.

Han Song was the third to arrive. He was the Chief Administrator, in charge of documents and archives. He had all the archives of the Jingzhou Governor's Office from the past twenty years. He told Liu Bei that the land registers, household registers, and tax registers of all the counties in Jingzhou were in the government treasury, and not a single one was missing. Liu Bei asked him to organize these archives and send them to Jian Yong.

Kuai Liang was the fourth to arrive. He was Kuai Yue's elder brother, and quite old, walking with a cane. Liu Bei personally helped him in at the door. Kuai Liang said he was an old man of no use, and had only come to see the Prime Minister. As he sat down opposite Liu Bei, his cane slid off the armrest of the chair and struck the brick floor with a sound.

Liu Bei spent a quarter of an hour talking with him, asking a few questions about his youth in Luoyang. When Kuai Liang left, he had a smile on his face, saying that even when Liu Biao was alive, he had never spoken to him like this.

Then came Xiang Lang. Xiang Lang was in charge of the defense of Xiangyang, and he defended the city flawlessly year after year. Liu Bei put him in charge of the city's defenses.

After this round of meetings, the gentry of Jingzhou were basically reassured. Fu Xun returned and told Kuai Yue that the Prime Minister was a very honest man. Kuai Yue replied that honest people are terrifying because they don't lie, but they also won't hesitate to take your life.

The civil service system in Yizhou, including Xun Yu and Chen Qun, was originally Liu Bei's core group, and it was only a matter of time before the gentry of Jingzhou, such as Kuai Yue, were integrated into it. Kuai Yue himself was aware of this. He had spent twenty years in the officialdom of Jingzhou, witnessing how Liu Biao won people over when he first arrived in Jingzhou, and how Cai Mao eliminated dissidents.

Liu Bei's approach was neither as soft as Liu Biao's, nor as hard as Cai Mao's. He first straightened your posture, then told you how to take the road ahead, and you had to take it whether you wanted to or not.

Mid-April. Three hundred li south of Xiangyang. Jiangling.

Jiangling was the capital of Nan Commandery, a vital strategic point in southern Jingzhou. The city bordered the Yangtze River to the north and the Yunmeng Marsh to the south, a network of waterways where egrets flew and perched among the rice paddies. Liu Bei's central army marched south along the Han River from Xiangyang, taking six days to reach Jiangling.

The counties along the way surrendered without resistance. Some county magistrates set up incense tables along the official road in advance, while others sealed their official seals and entrusted them to be sent to Xiangyang. The magistrate of Dangyang County was the first to send grain supplies: three hundred shi of rice and twenty pigs, which were transported to Liu Bei's central army by oxcart.

The gates of Jiangling were wide open. Kuai Yue, the governor of Nan Commandery, had accompanied Liu Bei south and had sent messengers ahead of time to deliver Liu Bei's proclamation: "Everyone stay in your positions and do not commit any offenses." The proclamation was written on silk, each character as large as a fist, and was pasted on the brick wall of the city gate.

When soldiers entered or left the city gates for inspection, they would read the notice aloud. As they read it, they became less nervous, stopped holding their swords, and even leaned their spears against the wall.

The people of Jiangling City stood on the street watching Liu Bei enter the city. No one knelt, and no one threw flowers. They just stood and watched. An old man squatted against the wall, smoking a pipe, the smoke crushed by the horses' hooves.

A woman leaned half her body out of a second-floor window, holding a needle and thread in her hand. A child was chasing a horse in the alley, but was stopped by a soldier. The child pouted as if about to cry, but the soldier took a dry biscuit from his pocket and gave it to him. The child took the biscuit and ran home.

Liu Bei rode his horse along the stone-paved streets of Jiangling. The streets of Jiangling were narrower than those of Xiangyang, but there were more shops. The shops on both sides of the street were not closed; cloth sellers were selling cloth as usual, and blacksmiths were forging iron as usual. The clanging of hammers striking anvils drowned out the sound of horses' hooves.

Liu Bei saw a blacksmith's shop with freshly forged hoes hanging outside. The blades were still blue, having just been quenched. He reined in his horse and told the blacksmith to make more farm tools, as they would be needed for spring plowing. The blacksmith responded, and only after Liu Bei had gone some distance did he tell his wife that the man he had just met was Liu Huangshu (the Imperial Uncle Liu).

The Jiangling government headquarters was located in the former Nanjun Prefectural Governor's residence. The governor's residence was not large, with two courtyards. In the back courtyard, there was a ginkgo tree with a dense canopy that covered half of the courtyard.

Liu Bei lived in the backyard, and Jia Xu lived in the frontyard. There was a well under the ginkgo tree, and the well water was very sweet. His personal guards drew water, boiled it, and brewed tea. The tea was the same coarse tea they had brought from Xiangyang, but brewed with well water from Jiangling, it tasted different. Liu Bei sat under the ginkgo tree reading military reports. The leaves had just fully grown, and sunlight filtered through the tender green leaves, casting dappled shadows onto the bamboo slips.

The first thing Jian Yong did upon arriving in Jiangling was to inventory the treasury. The Jiangling treasury held 200,000 shi of grain, 80,000 bolts of cloth, and 200 million coins. The treasury also contained a batch of military equipment: 20,000 spearheads, 100,000 arrowheads, and 3,000 bows and arrows, all brand new and unused.

Jian Yong flipped through the account books and muttered to himself, "Liu Biao has hoarded so much stuff, but he doesn't need it himself, so he's left it all to us."

Liu Bei instructed him to transport a portion of the grain to the dock for loading onto ships. He also ordered Jian Yong to establish a military grain transfer station outside Jiangling City. South of Jiangling lies the Yangtze River, west lies Bashu (Sichuan and Chongqing), and east lies Jiangdong (the region east of the Yangtze River). Jiangling served as a transit point; storing the grain there made it convenient to send it anywhere.

Next, Liu Bei ordered the surrendered troops from Jingzhou to be reorganized. The 12,000-strong Jingzhou navy was merged with Gan Ning's navy and placed under Gan Ning's command. The 23,000 infantrymen were weeded out, and the strong and able-bodied were retained and organized into the Jingzhou Camp, temporarily under the command of Guan Yu.

The reorganization was carried out in batches at the large camp outside Jiangling City. Soldiers marched in formation, and clerks checked the names, ages, and hometowns of each person according to the roster. The nearly seven thousand names that were actually fewer in number than those on the roster were crossed out by Jian Yong with a vermilion pen, and from that day on, the source of income for these "ghost employees" was cut off.

The newly formed Jingzhou battalion retained a number of former Jingzhou generals as officers, but each battalion was also assigned a former deputy battalion commander from Liu Bei's army. One was in charge of personnel, and the other was in charge of affairs.

The old deputy battalion commander didn't command battles; he was only in charge of military discipline, provisions, and drills. Some former generals from Jingzhou would slam their fists on the table while drinking and curse, "Isn't this just guarding against thieves?" But the next day during drills, they would still obediently stand at the front of the ranks and shout commands, because if they didn't shout the commands, the old deputy battalion commander wouldn't receive their pay.